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From the Sculpture Garden

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From the Sculpture Garden From the sculpture garden: Family Ruined, its accompanying poem reads: "Never returns the son killed Never returns the husband buried alive Sorrow drowns the wife raped Heavens..." FEATURE Reflections: Why Did the Massacre Happen? THE MEMORIAL HALL OF THE VICTIMS IN NANJING MASSACRE BY JAPANESE INVADERS By Ruby Tsao n April, 2014, I made a visit to the Museum of Nanjing Massacre. It is I constructed on the site of the Massacre which happened in 1937-38. I hope to describe the details to Americans who do not have a chance to visit the place. It happened that Gary Locke, former US ambassador to China, had a private visit to the Museum a few days later. Recently, there are a flurry of diplomatic and publicity efforts by Japanese government officials as well as in the internet to portray China as a threat in Asia, while Japan is a force for peace. I inquired into reference materials and publicity efforts to tell China’s side of the story. There are some committing atrocities in the form of books, but digital materials are not available for slaughter, rape, plunder, arson and internet distribution. The website: nj1937.org destruction. After the surrender of Japan, does not provide much content or lead to detailed the International Military Tribunal for information or photographs to document the the Far East and the Nanjing War atrocities. The museum is beautifully designed Crimes Tribunal investigated the with many sculptures. However, sculptures do Nanjing Massacre as a separate case. not provide authenticity as actual photographs or The investigation by the Nanjing War films that can be transmitted electronically to Crimes Tribunal revealed that Japanese publicize the images for the world to see the truth. troops had committed 28 mass slaughters From the book THE MEMORIAL HALL taking a toll of 190,000 persons, and 858 OF THE VICTIMS IN NANJING MASSACRE BY sporadic killings claiming the lives of JAPANESE INVADERS, a brief statement of over 150,000 Chinese, in total over historical background reads: 300,000 Chinese lost their lives. “The Nanjing Massacre refers to an Inaugurated on 15 August 1985, the exceedingly horrible massacre of Memorial Hall is located in the civilians by the Japanese army during a Southwest corner of Nanjing, the site of six-week period from December 1937 to the massacre and the site of the “Mass January 1938 after its occupation of Grave of Ten Thousand Corpses”, Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic expanded from 1994 to 1995 and again of China. In flagrant violation of from 2005 to 2007. Two master international conventions and architects in China, Qi Kang and He fundamental moral codes, the Japanese Jingtang, designed the expanded invaders stopped at nothing in Memorial Hall. It was reopened to the public on 13 December 2007 marking the the remains, there are pebble stones representing 70th anniversary of the Massacre. The the remains and broken walls symbolizing the Museum covers an area of 74,000 square destruction of Nanjing, and three sets of large meters, with a floor area of 25,000 square reliefs inlaid in the wall depicting “Calamity, meters and exhibition area of 12,000 Massacre and Memorial¨ and 17 monuments to square meters. Some highlights: the victims. Sculptures: about 30 sculptures scatter on the Sculpture Square and throughout the Museum, including a statue of Iris Chang with her book The Rape of Nanking in her hand. The Sacrificial Square: has an eternal flame burning in memory of the victims. The Memorial Square: “The gray stone wall is inscribed with the words” Victims The Meditation Hall: houses a shallow 300000— in Chinese, English and Japanese. The pool and flickering candle lights. name of the Memorial Hall carved on the wall is The Peace Park: is composed of green in Deng Xiaoping’s calligraphy. lawn, shrubs, tall trees and a 160 meter long pond. Hall of Testimony: “A Human Footprints of Historical Witnesses: is a Holocaust¨ is a regular exhibition with 150,000 walkway cast in bronze of footprints of 222 articles of cultural relics, valuable archives, survivors and members of the International photos, videos, weapons, ammunitions, etc. A Military Tribunal for the Far East. series of reports on the “Contest to kill 100 Chinese using a sword between Noda Tsuyoshi Wall bearing 10,000 names of the and Mukai Toshiaki¨ with photos carried in the victims: a small fraction of the over 300,000 Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun (Tokyo Daily News) victims, is made of granite, 43 meters long and showed Japanese soldiers amusing themselves by 3.5 meters high. slaughtering civilians. Goddess of Peace: the visit ends at the Graveyard Square: “The Mass Grave of white marble sculpture completed in September Ten Thousand Corpses¨: The remains of victims 2008 of a mother with a dove of peace in one hand were unearthed at the and a child in one arm, with the word “PEACE¨ mass grave during in Chinese and English inscribed on the pedestal 1983-84 excavation with a reflecting pool in front. and more remains About 5 million people a year come to were found between visit the Museum. Exhibitions on Nanjing 1998 and 1999. In Massacre have been held in 20 cities in China and 2006, a new mass 10 countries abroad. grave was identified. Outside of the The Museum gives physical evidence of building displaying Nanjing Massacre in spite of the denial of the Magee shot scenes of the Nanjing Massacre on site with his 16-mm movie camera. American professor Minnie Vautrin stayed in Nanjing to provide protection of 10,000 women and children. Witnessing such horrors caused her to become severely depressed and she committed suicide a year after she returned to the US for treatment. Their bronze statues are in the displays. In 1997, Chinese American writer Iris Chang published her book “The Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II¨. It was a best seller that shocked the Western world with the forgotten details of the Massacre Japan committed in Nanjing during WWII. She made a great contribution to tell the history of Nanjing Massacre to the people in the West. She also committed suicide from depression in 2004 at the age of 36. Her statue by Wang Hongzhi stands outside facing visitors, opposite the sculptures of the possible to forgive when Japanese, like the Germans, show remorse for the crimes committed to assure that this will never happen again. To summarize the history - Japanese militarism led to a series of aggression against China: the invasion of Taiwan; the annexation of Ryukyu Islands; the Naval War of 1894-95 to invade Korea and China; participation in the Eight Power Allied Forces, attacks on China and staging of the Mukden Incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria in northeast China. The Nationalist Government demonstrated its determination to resist the Japanese military that it took 3 months and the lives of 40,000 Japanese soldiers at the Battle of Shanghai and again sustained heavy losses to take the capital of Nationalist government Nanjing. On December 9, 1937, the Japanese military announced the full horrors of war on Nanjing and gave orders to kill all, regardless of age or gender. Japanese right wing government of its existence. Why did the Nanjing Massacre happen? The atrocities shocked the foreigners living in Japanese people appear to be such courteous, Nanjing at the time. John Rabe, an employee of law-abiding and peaceful people. Indeed, German company Siemens, and a dozen other majority of them are peace-loving, except they foreigners formed a safety zone for protection of are ignorant of historical facts deliberately Chinese refugees. The American missionary John covered up by the right wing government. The soldiers who committed such horrible crimes were also normal people before the atrocities. What caused normal Japanese to turn into slaughtering beasts committing crimes of murder, rape, plunder and arson? This has to do with Japan’s SAMURAI culture. Japan’s Samurai culture was established early in history and flourished in 15th and 16th centuries during the period of the Warring States, dozens of states fighting among themselves, independent from the central government. Wealthy landowners built private armies for their own protection. They employed homeless and jobless wanderers — who pledged absolute loyalty and would fight to death for the masters. Japan’s Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) They would do anything their masters asked, modernized the Imperial army, but many even killing innocent children. If a Samurai officers were recruited from Samurai warriors who pledged absolute loyalty to warrior could not accomplish the mission or was the Emperor to carry out his ambition to defeated in a battle, the shame would cause him conquer Asia. The Emperor was to commit suicide (Harakiri) by plunging a worshipped by all Japanese to r dagger to disembowel himself. Anyone who Many Japanese were surprised to learn of would perform such a brutal act on himself, the War history when they traveled abroad. They certainly would not hesitate to be brutal to victims are fair-minded people who would never condone he was ordered to kill. war crimes if they knew the truth. In fact, many Japan’s Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) soldiers of Japanese descent fought in the War on modernized the Imperial army, but many officers the US side. We have Japanese American friends were recruited from Samurai warriors who who were wrongfully locked up in internment pledged absolute loyalty to the Emperor to carry camps during the War. They were also victims of out his ambition to conquer Asia. The Emperor Japan’s aggressions. was worshipped by all Japanese to reach to a Samurai culture is rearing its ugly head status of god.
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